Are you, a) a highly paid, highly-powered woman who’s struggling to even get an interview for a lucrative role? Or, b) someone of either sex who doesn’t know recruiters very well and is struggling to even get interviews despite being highly suited for all the jobs you’re applying to?

If the answer to either question is yes, blame recruiters. They may be holding you back.

A new study from Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, an associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School, published in the journal Management Science, has found that recruiters are less likely to put women forward for highly paid positions. This is the case even though employers are keen to interview women. It also found that recruiters tend to put the same candidates forward over and over again.

Fernandez-Mateo’s study wasn’t specific to financial services. Instead, she scrutinised 23,355 candidates at a temporary IT recruitment company. They were considered for 6,705 temporary projects in 2,331 client firms over a nine-year period (in other words the study was quite exhaustive). Fernandez-Mateo argues that the temporary nature of the placements she studied acts as control against women’s self-selection bias: aware that they might need to leave the workplace to raise children, women tend to choose roles which are general rather than specific to that organisation. These general roles tend to be lower paying. If the role is only temporary anyway, this isn’t an issue.

After her nine year study, Fernandez-Mateo’s key takeaway is that:

‘Women are more likely to be shortlisted for lower-paid projects and less likely to be shortlisted for higher-paid projects when the staffing firm drives the decision, whereas clients are more likely to interview women for almost all projects with the exception of some at the top of the pay distribution.’

Why do recruiters do this? She postulates that they’re just playing it safe:

“In any labor market, some positions are more difficult to fill and the consequences of a screening failure more severe. To minimize these consequences and avoid disappointing the client, the intermediary may tend toward the “safest” option, which is usually the least atypical (i.e., men in this case).”

Fernandez-Mateo doesn’t say so, but the implication is that the more challenged recruiters feel, the safer they’ll play it – and the less likely that atypical candidates of any form will even get before the client.

This clearly has implications for financial services, where conditions are not easy at all for recruiters right now.

However, the financial services recruiters we spoke to insisted that they’re very proactive about putting women forward for well paid roles and that banks positively approve of this. “If anything, clients encourage us to place an emphasis on women when we’re assembling a short list,” says David Howell, managing director at search firm EM Group. “Banks will often ask us how many women there are on the shortlist,” agrees Adrian Ezra, chief executive of search firm ExecZen. “It can be hard – trading roles are often very male dominated and if we could find more women traders it would probably be welcomed,” he adds.

No 40 year olds, no women of childbearing age?

In the early 2000s Barclays Capital famously offered recruiters more money for putting female candidates on short lists. Banks’ recruiters say this proved unworkable in practice, however.

Off the record, recruiters tell us it’s still quite common for banks to ask for restrictions on the ages and experience levels of shortlisted candidates – they don’t want people who are too old. In the distant past, headhunters also complained that they were being asked to eliminate ‘breeders’ – defined as women of child bearing age who might take maternity leave, from shortlists.

Befriend your recruiter, keep him/her close

Fernandez-Mateo observed that her recruiters had a tendency to put keep putting the same shortlisted candidates forward. This may be less of an issue outside the temping market, but recruiter partiality is worth bearing in mind if you want to have any chance of getting anywhere near an interview.

Howell insists the best headhunters are totally objective, however. “Every search will involve a different shortlist. We’re not doing our job properly if we’re just recycling the same people,” he insists.

Comments (9)

Those who can – Recruit. Those who can’t – work in other, less challenging jobs. This is coming from me, a 28 year old recuiter who commands a salary in excess of £130k a year and enjoys the finer things in life. Discuss.

Women really want to get in to the Board Room and will get there regardless of whether they have the skill, talent, contacts or time. They will get there by demanding legislation to get them there and by insisting on playing the numbers game. This is a great shame for those women that really have the talent and ability as they will simply be put into the same category as those that got there by legislation and not talent. The first lot, having got there, will then moan and complain that they are not being taken seriously and will then try and get “take us seriously” legislation! Those that have got it get to the top and those that have not don’t. Shame the Prof at the LBS cannot spell!

Recruiter…..not you again. You are just making a fool of yourself! We all know you are on £30-£50k basic SALARY and get COMMISSION when one of your clients hires one of the candidates you have been spamming all over town.

InReality – unfortunately for you, that is exactly the level of salary that I both expect and command as a 28 year old recruiter at the top of my game. I would literally not even get out of bed for anything less – in fact I couldn’t even live on less than this. Can I suggest that it is you who is the ‘fool’ for not accepting my superior skill set and earning power.

I am afraid that my experience agrees with Prof Fernandez-Mateo findings. Since becoming a “breeder” I have been put forward for 3 jobs by recruiters despite applying for over 150 in the last year or so. I was offered an interview in two out of the three cases my CV went to the company. Current market conditions notwithstanding the numbers speak for themselves as far as I am concerned. Recruitment agencies that sit within companies are no better.

I have no doubt that there are “good” recruiters out there, I have come across them, but they are sadly rare. I am (was) a trader.